This was too much for the philosophy as well as for the courage of Tom Eccles.  It was all very well to look on at some distance, and observe the wonderful and inexplicable proceedings of the vampyre; but when he showed symptoms of making a nearer acquaintance, it was not to be borne.

“Why, he’s coming here,” said Tom.—­“He seems so indeed,” remarked Marchdale.

“Do you mean to stay?”—­“I think I shall.”

“You do, do you?”—­“Yes, I should much like to question him, and as we are two to one I think we really can have nothing to fear.”

“Do you?  I’m altogether of a different opinion.  A man who has more lives than a cat don’t much mind at what odds he fights.  You may stay if you like.”—­“You do not mean to say that you will desert me?”

“I don’t see a bit how you call it deserting you; if we had come out together on this adventure, I would have stayed it out with you; but as we came separate and independent, we may as well go back so.”—­“Well, but—­”

“Good morning?” cried Tom, and he at once took to his heels towards the town, without staying to pay any attention to the remonstrances of Marchdale, who called after him in vain.

Sir Francis Varney, probably, had Tom Eccles not gone off so rapidly, would have yet taken another thought, and gone in another direction than that which led him to the ruins, and Tom, if he had had his senses fully about him, as well as all his powers of perception, would have seen that the progress of the vampyre was very slow, while he continued to converse with Marchdale, and that it was only when he went off at good speed that Sir Francis Varney likewise thought it prudent to do so.

“Is he much terrified?” said Varney, as he came up to Marchdale.—­“Yes, most completely.”

“This then, will make a good story in the town.”—­“It will, indeed, and not a little enhance your reputation.”

“Well, well; it don’t much matter now; but if by terrifying people I can purchase for myself anything like immunity for the past, I shall be satisfied.”—­“I think you may now safely reckon that you have done so.  This man who has fled with so much precipitation, had courage.”

“Unquestionably.”—­“Or else he would have shrunk from coming here at all.”

“True, but his courage and presence arose from his strong doubts as to the existence of such beings as vampyres.”—­“Yes, and now that he is convinced, his bravery has evaporated along with his doubts; and such a tale as he has now to tell, will be found sufficient to convert even the most sceptical in the town.”

“I hope so.”—­“And yet it cannot much avail you.”

“Not personally, but I must confess that I am not dead to all human opinions, and I feel some desire of revenge against those dastards who by hundreds have hunted me, burnt down my mansion, and sought my destruction.”—­“That I do not wonder at.”

“I would fain leave among them a legacy of fear.  Such fear as shall haunt them and their children for years to come.  I would wish that the name of Varney, the vampire, should be a sound of terror for generations.”—­“It will be so.”